Stranger danger has not yet set in

At least not when Holden has a full tummy and is kinda sleepy. Or possibly as long as he has some hair to tug on. Because our first meeting with Santa went extremely well!

We went to the Santa at Shops of Legacy out of pure convenience since we had a birthday brunch for Craig at Jasper's on Sunday morning with his mom, and this particular Santa was about a three minute walk away. And yes, we're those people who shelled out $50 for a sheet of photos and a digital copy of the image, but it was SO EASY. Minimal wait, happy helpers, and a generally pleasant experience. Yay!!

Holden was just so cute with him - he sat there and gazed at his face, then nuzzled in like he wanted to take a nap in all that fluff. You'll notice Santa kinda has Holden's right arm tucked down - yup, there was some serious thumb sucking going on (sleepy baby!), and we needed to try and get a smile. So out of frame is mom playing peekaboo (currently the hottest game in town) to encourage grins, and it actually worked.

Oh, and rest assured that beard is legit - Holden gave it a mighty tug for us.

Happy holidays, little bug - can wait to create all of these memories and start new traditions with you. This whole holiday season business has me feeling pretty mushy this year.

So the "every day" thing didn't work out...

...you know, posting every day? optimism and all?...but we're back on track! I got thrown for a bit of a loop on Monday when I officially became a person not obligated to go to work at around 4:30 PM. Whaaaaaaaaat, you say? Well, after going back from maternity leave right into busy season and getting a true reality check in "nope, this is not for me anymore EVER," I worked on finding a new job where I might actually have a life and DID and put in my notice and then found out that notice = leave pretty much right now, so that's that!  And my new gig doesn't kick off until January 5th, soooo...I'm currently not working but still getting paid and it's basically amazeballs.

Totally productive things I've accomplished in the last five days:
 - Finishing up Christmas shopping...mostly
 - Wrapping a chunk of that Christmas shopping into pretty packages
 - Going to the grocery store and buying things that enabled me to cook a real dinner in the form of chicken pot pie
 - Baking banana muffins
 - Baking milk chocolate-dipped hazelnut sandies for the 2014 Cover-to-Cover Project: Holiday Cookies
 - Excessive loads of laundry
 - Successfully shoved approximately 25 pills down Cleo the kitty cat's throat and kept her alive while Momma Dale was out of town

Totally self-indulgent things I've blissfully enjoyed in the last five days:

 - Took myself to the movies at 10:15 in the morning - Mockingjay and a giant bag of popcorn for the win
 - The aforementioned baking is also because I just like to do it
 - Starbucks grande latte pretty much every day
 - Friday lunch with Carolyn with no care about how long we sat and chatted because there was no job to hustle back to

And the ultimate combination of productive/indulgent = EXTRA HOLDEN TIME.  He's still kicking it at daycare for a chunk of the day so he can maintain some kind of routine while I run around, but I've been picking him up early and enjoying every extra minute I can steal with this sweet baby. They allllll say it, but of course he's growing up too fast.

And the ULTIMATE indulgence that hasn't happened and just won't...sleeping in. I have a baby now, so that's just not in the cards, and for those of you who really know me, you know how I am about sleep.

Ummmm...I could get used to this. Which is dangerous. But I'm also excited about my new work path, and so I'm going to soak up every minute of the next three weeks and then jump into a fresh start. Happy holidays, y'all.

Operation Nursery...complete!

It's definitely been a work in progress, but now we finally have what is probably the only "complete" room in our home.  Holden, I hope you like it!

He really does have an army of puppies in there!  Quilt by my wonderful mommy, crib skirt by me, puppy prints from Etsy, crib from Pottery Barn Kids, crazy wall camera to watch him sleep installed by Craig.

All ready for changing!  Dresser and mirror are from Ikea, and random assorted things are from random assorted places.

The giant alphabet wall!  Alphabet decals are from Etsy, chair from Buy Buy Baby, storage ottoman from Target.  Learn your letters, Holden.

The tiny clothes await!  Itty-bitty plaid shorts, I die at the cuteness.

Lots and lots and lots of tiny clothes...and diapers and toys and books.  Thank goodness for plenty of storage space.

Cute things on shelves, yeah yeah!

Alllllll ready for lots and lots of reading, courtesy of wonderful friends building his library at the baby shower.  Yes, we probably need an actual bookcase or something, but for now a basket on the floor works for me.

All ready for you, Holden!  Curtains by me

See, we at least appear to be ready for a baby...

I love the "little man" banners from the baby shower, so they're on the wall now!

Here's your cozy place, Holden.

The puppies are waiting!

Run Kami run!

After many, many months of training and I can't even begin to imagine how many miles run, Kami completed her first marathon on Sunday!!  This was originally supposed to happen back in December before the Icy Disaster swept through and cancelled the race, so here we are almost three months later with a baby road trip over to Fort Worth for the Cowtown Marathon on a beautiful spring-like day (a million times better than the ice and snow!).  The perfect day for a run!  You know, for you people who like to do that kind of thing...

Check out the awesome medal - it's a spur!  I love you, Fort Worth.

Go Kami!  Winnie the puppy dog was not cooperating on the picture-taking, but I promise she was very supportive.

I have absolutely no desire to ever run a marathon in my life (I probably wouldn't even wake up for it...), but I'm happy to support my friends who do.  It gives me an excuse to create inspirational craft projects that look as though they were inspired and executed by a seven year old (giant bubble/block letters!  pink glitter paint!).

So proud of you, Kami!  And just watching her run 26.2 miles made us hungry, so Carolyn, Eva, and I had frozen custard from Curly's and delicious brunch at Cafe Brazil in her honor.  You know, we had to walk a little bit from where we parked to the finish line...there was even a very small hill involved.  Definitely exercise.  And then I promptly went home and took a nap.

This is how I know

This is how I know that Craig loves me.

He wore a Red Raider shirt completely of his own accord last week when we went to Vaughns to watch the incredibly frustrating Tech-Oklahoma State game.  I didn't ask him to, he just did it.  That's love.  For us, anyway.  Fortunately, Diana captured the moment for posterity.  And yes, we're bringing obscene amounts of food into that home; that's just the way we roll.  Or the way I roll.  As Craig likes to remind me, I tend to overdo it a bit when it comes to the food front.  Although he's the guy who prepares two pounds of meat per person, therefore enabling the handing out of meat bags at the end of the night.  We're both food overdoers.

For a reality check, I think this whole Red Raider fan situation went really well for me because Washington had a bye last week...

Sewing...an actual garment...for me to WEAR...in public...

The last thing I attempted to sew that was actually meant to worn on my own body was a pair of pajama pants, circa sometime early 2000s...heck, let's call it a decade or so ago...and it was pretty much an epic fail.  Sorry to break it to you like that.  It did come together relatively smoothly - the legs ended up actually being about the length of my legs, my waist wasn't horribly constricted by some ridiculous elastic situation, the fabric was cute and everything.  I triumphantly pulled them on and went to curl up on the couch - and the entire crotch area riiiiiiiiiiipped apart because I did a horrible job of taking care of an important seam.  So much to learn about reinforcing and stitch length and so on and so forth.  I think I got frustrated and threw them in the trash.

Well, we've come a long way, people.  Skillz acquired and ready to go.  And when my dear friends Dan & Jeremy said "hey y'all, we're getting married in Mexico, you SO must be there, please wear white because it'll look awesome and beachy!!"...I thought big.  I mean, first I looked on ModCloth and scoped out my options, but then since I'm an insane crazy person I relish in at least starting craftastic projects, I thought about sewing a dress.  Yeah, let's go for it!  I can do this!!  I'm going to buy Rae's Washi Dress pattern and DO this thing!!!  So excited, LET'S BUY THE PERFECT FABRIC!!!!

There you go - March 9, 2013 - captured for posterity in a sad phone pic - found some great seersucker with a bronzey metallic thread running through it, super cute, tons of possibilities.  Let's do this thing, for reals.  I have approximately three months to make this dress happen, and I'm feeling dang good about things.

So excited that by MAY 27, two and half months into this three month window, I had done THIS with the fabric...

...yeah, that's right, I totally washed AND dried it.  And refolded it.  And let it sit.  Until Memorial Day weekend, about two and a half weeks before we were hopping on a plane to Cabo San Lucas.  I figured this holiday weekend better count for something, so I made some epic progress, like actually getting the pattern assembled (PDF patterns from online purchases...yup, you print those bad boys out on regular ol' paper, tape it together, and then cut it out - just putting the pattern together was a little tedious, yeeps)...

...and cutting out the pieces for this thing, where I gladly used whatever typical household tools were available to assist and was extremely grateful that we shelled out for the extra-long dining room table, which basically serves as a craft station far more frequently than it actually functions as a dining room table. 

Then I actually started sewing, and the piles of fabric started to come together in something remotely resembling a garment.  Holy hell, I'm feeling kinda good about this, even with the late start.

I mean, I have helpers and everything!

Craig helped by bringing me a glass of wine (a sewing machine doesn't count as heavy machinery, right?), and Harry and Zach are totally helpful when it comes to sewing.  Just look at all of that encouragement surrounding me.  And those shelves that still haven't made it onto a wall, but let's not think about that right now.

And then the dress really did start looking like a dress, which happens when you decide to line the dress (since it's white...I mean, come on, we need another layer of fabric in there), which means you're basically sewing two dresses instead of one and one of the dresses just happens to get sewn into the other dress.  Phew.  We're getting there.

Mission-critical pinning-together of the dress and the lining - fingers crossed!

So, at this point, I've basically exploded all over the dining room AND my office/craftastic room...

...and everyone's worried, even the dog, who is usually pretty laid-back about most things in life, so now I'm getting worried, too.

Mom, WHAT exactly are you doing??

And then it all went wrong when I botched the lining and basically sewed everything together backwards and cursed the day I decided to freaking sew a dress wondered what I had gotten myself into and spent more time than I would like to admit to picking out stitches and redoing hours of work.

Yes, I finished the dress the night before we left.  And it worked.  Thank goodness.

I'm going to call this one a craftastic win, even with my procrastination.  Because, I mean, just look how cute we are.  Phew.

A swift punch in the face

Remember that cookbook I mentioned?  That just made my day?

Yes, that one.  I was so excited to receive this in the mail that I punched myself in the face.  Literally.  Ripped open that packaging so quickly that my hand flew back and connected with my face.  Which caused Craig to laugh and laugh and laugh at me, and I think I actually did something practical like ice my face.  Which was probably dramatic.  But so was the punch in the face, so it really all goes together.

I mean, this may be the only time my name makes it out in the world in print (unless you count any number of boring tax things I worked on while in DC, which I don't count since they were...boring tax things), so I overreacted.

There I am!  Woot woot!

My notes are responsible for things like pan de campo, ruby red sweet rolls, and coconut tres leches cake.  And I just had way too much fun testing recipes.  How to turn this into a job...

Go forth and make these things.  Check out the Homesick Texan blog.  Buy the book of deliciousness (Kindle edition, only $9.90!).  Make tasty food.

Eleven for '11

Eleven pictures to oh so briefly sum up my 2011

I moved back to Dallas from DC...in the middle of a giant snowy disaster.  Which you'd really think would be much more likely to happen the other way around.  But I was home.

And not only did I move to Texas...but Zach did, too.  And his dad, of course.  And Harry thought this was pretty much the worst day ever.  I worried.  A lot.  And basically it's all ok now.

I bought a dress.  Not just any dress.  THE dress.  And they celebrated by attacking us with bubbles, which was fun and wonderful in every way.  I'm so glad my mom was there.

My sissy went and graduated from Duke Law School.  Kinda a big deal.  Just sayin.

So many wonderful times throughout the year with so many wonderful friends, and nothing says it better than four Fredericksburg pies.  Yes, four.  We needed alllll the flavors.  So grateful for these wonderful friends, and not just because they agree to four pies.

We celebrated this whole "we're engaged!!" business with some official photography moments.  And I've just never been happier.

I have two of the most amazing friends a girl could ask for in Carolyn and Kami, and our annual summer trip is always, always one of the highlights of my year.  And Beaver Creek in the summer is a TREAT with these ridiculous Texas summers.

Soooo....we bought a house.  A month before the wedding.  Much going on?  Nah.  Just the usual.  So we bought a giant, beautiful house to turn into a home and build our lives together.  Ok, maybe a touch more awesome than "the usual."

Last year I did some recipe testing for a cookbook...and the cookbook became real and a free copy was shipped to me and my name is in there and I think the whole thing is just generally cool because I absolutely loved the work and the whole experience.  I. love. food.  You know this.

Craig and I got married.  And we had a wonderful wedding.  Surrounded by family and friends.  And we had a FUN wedding.  One of the most amazing days of my life, really and truly.

And we followed up the wonderful, amazing wedding with a wonderful, amazing honeymoon to Costa Rica where we did ridiculous things like zipline through the rainforest.  Such an incredible trip, and really a very incredible year.

Giant big deal #1 - we totally went and bought a house

Can you believe it?!?  Normally I'm a huge overanalyzer and delayer of doing and major procrastinator...but we just DID this thing.  We'd spent a few weekends with our realtor checking out houses in various areas to get a really good idea of what we really wanted in a house and where we wanted to be geographically...and did you know there are about a million things to consider when you're buying a house?  Things like square footage (Craig won this battle - his belief is bigger is better) and number of bedrooms and school districts and size of backyard and age of home and how much do you really want to spend and dear HEAVENS the commute time and so on and so on and so forth.  And imagine two people who both like to have their way making this decision together.  We made it through this - good pre-marital test, methinks.

And while I wasn't 100% really ready and totally on board with buying a house RIGHT NOW - it just worked out.  We both fell in love with this place, and it has absolutely everything we want, and I want to live in this house for the next fifty years.  I love it.  And Craig loves it, too.  And when that actually happens, you dang well better just buy the place.  Especially when the sellers are more than happy to do a sale-leaseback so the buyers (ummm...us) aren't stuck with rent+mortgage for a few months.  It just all came together.

So I crunched spreadsheet numbers and panicked while Craig told me it would all be ok...and it was.  I'm such a worrier.

Yay for our own little slice of Carrollton!!

That day we celebrated with lunch at Abuelo's (extremely close to our new home AND site of many fond A-town memories AND delicious Mexican food!!), and then we also had giant steaks and a bottle of bubbly for dinner.  Because food is really the best way to celebrate, you know.  A little anticlimactic since we don't actually live in the house (and won't be there until December/January, btw), but still really, really exciting.  And really, really real when we make that first mortgage payment here in about ten days.  Yowza.

I grabbed the pictures from the realtor website and tossed them into a Picasa album if you'd like a better look.  It's all perfect and wonderful in those pictures (except for the color of the dining room - I'm dying to paint, and other than that it's pefect...and maybe some more painting, because I'm demented and actually really love to paint walls), so it might look a little more sad when we move in and have less furniture (fact of new home ownership, right??  there is a dining set in our near future...), but it will be our home.  For a very long while.  And I'm so, so happy about that.

Oh?  What was that you said?  We're totally insane for adding "home purchase" to the list of life events occuring over the last month or so, especially with the wedding coming up?  I totally agree.  Hoping my stress levels at least burned some calories.

Lawyered!

A few weeks ago we made a journey to the forest to celebrate an EXTREMELY important event...Amanda's graduation from Duke Law!!  I can't believe she's knocked this out - I mean, where did the time go?!?  At any rate, super proud of my sissy and super excited to go see her and my family (yay for mommers and dadders!) for a weekend of celebrating.

First order of buisness was a law school family BBQ in the gardens at Duke, and since it didn't actually rain on us (phew!), it was a lovely event.  Plenty of delicious food, the chance to meet Amanda's law school peeps, minor forest/garden adventures, and wonderful family time.
 

Thanks for taking our picture in the forest, Craig!

This was all pleasantly follwed by chillaxin at Amanda's with a board game or two (I love games!!  and these people indulge me) and admiring the pretty awesome Duke quilt my mom made for Amanda.  It's enormous!!  And amazing!

The next morning we also had some dress adventures checking out bridesmaid dress options (don't worry, we totally didn't make the boys come in with us for that one), and to reward ourselves for tackling a wedding-related task, we of course had burgers for lunch.  Bull City.  Soooo tasty.  And especially tasty were the duck fat fries.  Cue music of the angels.

Also cue music of the angels for our rockin' mini-van.  It held everyone and all of our stuff comfortably and was actually a quite enjoyable ride for the weekend.  Even if it was a mini-van.

Now it's time for...the hooding ceremony!  Held indoors at Cameron, thank goodness, because it actually did rain during this one.  What's the hooding ceremony?  I'm calling it the occasion where mere robes become adorned with an epic hood that will choke you if you don't pin it carefully.  Specially reserved for those who have completed extra years of intense schooling.



I think I'm in the right place!  We'll see!

Offically hooded and making her way across the stage!  Goooo Amanda!!  Also gooooo zoom lens!

She's hooded, and so are all of her awesome friends!

Proud and happy family with the hooded lawyerette!  Also, the purse is totally Amanda's and not Dad's, although he can really rock a pink clutch.

Double lawyer power!

A celebratory dinner at Dos Perros (yay Mexican food!) followed, and then fast-forward to the next day for epic, all-school, all-inclusive graduation ceremonies, AGAIN with the threat of rain...come on, forest, let up on the rain!

There's not a building on the Duke campus that can hold all of these people, so we were hanging out at the football field, which they totally enhanced with fake buildings - Carrie observed "lend an air of Harry Potter" to the event.

They actually did have ponchos handy in case of rain, which was very thoughtful.

She's all graduated!!

Aren't we cute at the football field?

Always Red Raiders...even when we're at Duke, oopsie.

And back to the law school to claim this VERY important piece of paper - yay for Amanda!

The picture extravaganza has exploded on Facebook, of course, and then there's the ENTIRE album on Picasa for your viewing pleasure.

Major congratulations to my sissy!!